It's been a while ....

It's been a while. 
The garden hasn't stopped growing and I haven't stopped gardening, life has just been getting in the way of writing about it.

It's the first month of our summer and the veggie patch is 'going off'.  We are approaching the summer solstice which means that my garlic will be ready for harvest (although I have cheated and picked some already). Most of the garlic flowered early and I had to de-flower them with secateures so that the garlic bulbs weren't going to lose any nutruients. Seems to have worked - the bulbs are enormous.

The tomatoes are just lovely, we are starting to get quite a glut of them so I'll be preserving soon.

Lettuce, eschallots, zucchini, cucumber, beetroot, spinach and rocket are all doing well. I'm avoiding hearting veg because it's getting quite hot and humid and I dont want them to turn bitter.

My little peach tree had one peach on it, it's first fruiting.  Unfortunatley we have neighbours who leave fruit on the ground and the fruit fly have moved in early and got to my one and only peach.  I placed them in boiling water for that. Bloody mongrels (the fruit fly lava not the neighbours - although it did cross my mind briefly)  the only good thing was that it gave me a bit of warning for the tomatoes and I have taken action to try to limit the damage they might do.

I have almost completed my quest for laundry tubs too.  At present I have 3 units consisting of 2 tubs each, 1 unit with 3 tubs and 2 units with 1 tub.
I'm successfully growing:  Curly leaf parsley, Italian parsley, lemon thyme, thyme, sage, oregano, mint, chives, Vietnamese mint, & opal basil.  I am going to reserve the single tubs for a water feature which, if successful, will defy gravity and probably give P and myself matching hernias.
A colleague at work has another 2 double tubs that his father is getting rid of and he kindly mentioned it to me.  They were both used as duck ponds but they will be destined to house strawberries in their new home.
If I do say so myself, those tubs were a scathingly brilliant idea. Everything grows so well in them.

The fruit trees are a bit sad, I have managed to save the tangello from further damage and the lemon seems to be ok too but the lime and the tangerine have suffered extensive borer damage and it looks like I will lose them.  The trees are so old (over 30 years) so I should be happy they have lived long and fruitful lives but I will misss them and I am not sure I'm looking forward to starting over with new trees.

The Arbour blew over, our fault - we had a terrible storm a few months back.  We had the Arbour anchored with rope and tent pegs but we should have secured it with concrete.  The wind blew it over along with the passionfruit vine and a thornless blackberry.  All three were quite traumatised, unfortunately the passionfruit & the blackberry didnt make it.  The Arbour will live to see another storm but this time we'll  make sure it is immovable.